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Chaining the dragons

In the seventh season of Game of Thrones, when Daenerys Targaryen comes to Dragonpit for the big meeting to negotiate a stay of fighting, she mentions how the Dragonpit was originally constructed by her ancestors to house the dragons. She says that the dragons, who are naturally huge and fearsome, grew weaker and smaller when chained and shackled and not allowed to roam free, until they were no longer feared.

Our personal traits and characteristics are not too different from these dragons. By nature, they are wild and powerful. If we are allowed to fully express ourselves, our personal characteristics shine bright and come out in full force.

However, living in a society means that we need to shackle and chain those characteristics that are not aligned with the culture of our society, of our city or country, of our friends circle, of our relatives and family, of our work place. We have to weaken and control them and perhaps even eliminate them or face the wrath of the rest of the people that contribute to the society, friends circle or work place. We have to weaken and control them or risk being an outcast who isn't accepted and supported.

In doing so, we are changing ourselves. By weakening and killing off some aspects of our self, we end up different people than what we started out.

This is evolution and this is growth. And it is absolutely necessary that we do this. The only thing we need to ensure is that we are changing for the better.

Again, better here is subjective and is heavily determined by the culture of who and where we have associations. Once we associate ourselves with someone or something, we invariably evolve towards the cultural traits that are cherished and tolerated by them. And we invariably kill off those aspects of us that aren't in line with that culture.

The simple way of saying this is we are the average of the people we hang out with, or the average of the things (ideas) we consume.

Fighting this is futile.

Instead, what we have the option to do is to choose our associations, choose our ideas, and choose the culture we want to be a part of.

So why not choose something that will help us evolve and grow into something better?